An astronaut is looking down on earth's surface from a space shuttle at an altitude of . Assuming that the astronaut's pupil diameter is and the wavelength of visible light is, the astronaut will be able to resolve linear objects of the size of about :
Step 1: Given data
The aperture of the instrument:
Distance of space shuttle from the earth:
Wavelength:
Step 2: Formula used
To find the Resolving power, we will use the following formula:
Where, is the aperture/diameter of the instrument
is the distance of the space shuttle from the earth.
is the wavelength.
Step 3: Find Resolving power
By substituting the given values in the above-mentioned formula, we get:
Thus, the astronaut will be able to resolve linear objects of the size of about .